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Judge Harrison was at that point, reading it slowly, clearing his throat, studying the answer Then he revealed his lanced up a few inches, just above the sheet of paper he was holding, just over the cheap reading glasses perched on his nose, and he looked directly at Wes Payton The grin was tight, conspiratorial, yet filled with gleeful satisfaction

"Question number five: "Do you find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the actions of Krane Cheent as to justify the ies?"Answer: "Yes"

Mary Grace stopped writing and looked over the bobbing head of her client to her husband, whose gaze was frozen upon her They had won, and that alone was an exhilarating, ale was their victory? At that crucial split second, both kneas indeed a landslide

Question nues"? Answer: "Thirty-eight million dollars"

There were gasps and coughs and soft whistles as the shock waves rattled around the courtroo down and trying to appear unfazed by the bo to recover and breathe norhts that ran along the lines of ignorant people, backwater stupidity, and so on

Mr and Mrs Payton were again both reaching for their client, as overco pitifully to sit up Wes whispered reassurances to Jeannette while repeating to hied to keep his face serious and avoid a goofy smile

Huffy the banker stopped crunching his nails In less than thirty seconds he had gone fro star with designs on a bigger salary and office He even felt smarter Oh, what a raph first thing in the

The judge was going on about for the jurors, but Huffy didn't care He had heard all he needed to hear

The jurors stood and filed out as Uncle Joe held the door and nodded with approval

He would later tell his wife that he had predicted such a verdict, though she had no memory of it He claimed he hadn't missed a verdict in the many decades he had worked as a bailiff When the jurors were gone, Jared Kurtin stood and, with perfect composure, rattled off the usual post-verdict inquiries, which Judge Harrison took with great compassion now that the blood was on the floor Mary Grace had no response

Mary Grace didn't care She had what she wanted

Wes was thinking about the 41his ee, their reputations, everything

When Judge Harrison finally announced, "We are adjourned," a mob raced from the courtroom

Everyone grabbed a cell phone

Mr Trudeau was still standing at the atching the last of the sun set far beyond New Jersey Across the wide room Stu the assistant took the call and ventured forward a few steps before

Three ht in punitive"

Froht dip in the boss's shoulder, a quiet exhaling in frustration, then aof obscenities

Mr Trudeau slowly turned around and glared at the assistant as if he just ht?" he asked, and Stu desperately wished he had not

"Yes, sir"

Behind him the door was open Bobby Ratzlaff appeared in a rush, out of breath, shocked and scared and looking for Mr Trudeau Ratzlaff was the chief in-house lawyer, and his neck would be the first on the chopping block He was already sweating

"Get your boys here in five rowled, then turned back to his

The press conference materialized on the first floor of the courthouse

In two sroups, Wes and Mary Grace chatted patiently with reporters Both gave the same answers to the same questions No, the verdict was not a record for the state of Mississippi Yes, they felt it was justified No, it was not expected, not an award that large anyway Certainly it would be appealed Wes had great respect for Jared Kurtin, but not for his client Their fir Krane Chemical No, they did not expect to settle those cases

Yes, they were exhausted

After half an hour they finally begged off, and walked fro hand in hand, each lugging a heavy briefcase They were photographed getting into their car and driving away

Alone, they said nothing Four blocks, five, six Ten minutes passed without a word

The car, a battered Ford Taurus with a million miles, at least one low tire, and the constant click of a sticking valve, drifted through the streets around the university

Wes spoke first "What's one-third of forty-one million?"

"Don't even think about it"

"I' about it Just a joke"

"Just drive"

"Anyplace in particular?"

"No"

The Taurus ventured into the suburbs, going nowhere but certainly not going back to the office They stayed far away frohborhood with the lovely home they had once owned

Reality slowly settled in as the nuan to fade A lawsuit they had reluctantly filed four years earlier had now been decided in ah they had a tereat

The wounds were raw, the battle scars still very fresh

The gas gauge showed less than a quarter of a tank, so that Wes would have barely noticed two years earlier Noas a much more serious uar-and when he needed fuel, he simply pulled in to his favorite station and filled the tank with a credit card He never saw the bills; they were handled by his bookkeeper Now the credit cards were gone, as were the BMW and the Jaguar, and the sa out a few dollars in cash to keep the Payton firm just above the waterline

Mary Grace glanced at the gauge, too, a recently acquired habit She noticed and reas, a loaf of bread, a half gallon of milk She was the saver and he was the spender, but not tooand the cases were settling, she had relaxed a bit toohad not been a priority They were young, the fir, the future had no limits

Whatever she hadsince been devoured by the Baker case

An hour earlier they had been broke, on paper, with ruinous debts far outweighing whatever flis were different The liabilities had not gone away, but the black side of their balance sheet had certainly improved

Or had it?

When ht Krane now offer a settle would the appeal take? How much time could they now devote to the rest of their practice?

Neither wanted to ponder the questions that were haunting both of them They were simply too tired and too relieved For an eternity they had talked of little else, and now they talked about nothing To

"We're alas," she said

No retort came to his weary mind, so Wes said, "What about dinner?"

"Macaroni and cheese with the kids"

The trial had not only drained they and assets; it had also burned away any excess weight theyat the outset Wes was down at least fifteen pounds, though he didn't know for sure because he hadn't stepped on the scale in months

Nor was he about to inquire into this delicate matter with his wife, but it was obvious she needed to eat They had skippedto dress the kids and get theued motions in Harrison 's office while the other prepared for the next cross-exaht and siy drinks had kept the

"Sounds great," he said, and turned left onto a street that would take them home

Ratzlaff and two other lawyers took their seats at the sleek leather table in a corner of Mr Trudeau's office suite The walls were all glass and provided nificent views of skyscrapers packed into the financial district, though no one was in the mood for scenery Mr Trudeau was on the phone across the room behind his chrome desk The lawyers waited nervously They had talked nonstop to the eyewitnesses down in Mississippi but still had feers

The boss finished his phone conversation and strode purposefully across the room

"What happened?" he snapped "An hour ago you guys were downright cocky Noe got our asses handed to us What happened?" He sat down and glared at Ratzlaff

"Trial by jury It's full of risks," Ratzlaff said

"I've been through trials, plenty of the the best shysters in the business The best ht?"

"Oh yes We paid dearly Still paying"

Mr Trudeau slapped the table and barked, "What rong?!"

Well, Ratzlaff thought to himself and wanted to say aloud except that he very much treasured his job, let's start with the fact that our company built a pesticide plant in Podunk, Mississippi, because the land and labor were dirt cheap, then we spent the next thirty years duround and into the rivers, quite illegally of course, and we conta water until it tasted like spoiled milk, which, as bad as it asn't the worst part, because then people started dying of cancer and leukemia

That, Mr Boss and Mr CEO and Mr Corporate Raider, is exactly rong

"The lawyers feel good about the appeal," Ratzlaff said instead, without much conviction

"Oh, that's just super Right now I really trust these lawyers Where did you find these clowns?"

"They're the best, okay?"

"Sure And let's just explain to the press that we're ecstatic about our appeal and perhaps our stock won't crash to?"

"We can spin it," Ratzlaff said The other tyers were glancing at the glass walls Who wanted to be the first to jump?

One of Mr Trudeau's cell phones rang and he snatched it off the table "Hi, honey," he said as he stood and walked away It was (the third) Mrs Trudeau, the latest trophy, a deadly young woman whom Ratzlaff and everyone else at the co, then said goodbye

He walked to anear the lawyers and gazed at the sparkling towers around him

"Bobby," he said without looking, "do you have any idea where the jury got the figure of thirty-eight es?"

"Not right offhand"

"Of course you don't For the first nine ht norant rednecks who collectively couldn't earn a hundred grand a year, and they sit there like gods taking fro to the poor"

"We still have the money, Carl," Ratzlaff said "It'll be years before a dies hands, if, in fact, that ever happens"

"Great! Spin that to the wolves tooes down the drain"

Ratzlaff shut up and slumped in his chair The other tyers were not about to utter a sound

Mr Trudeau was pacing dramatically "Forty-one million dollars And there are how many other cases out there, Bobby? Did someone say two hundred, three hundred? Well, if there were three hundred this

Every redneck in south Mississippi with a fever blister will now claiic brew froree is driving there now to sign up clients This wasn't supposed to happen, Bobby You assured me"

Ratzlaff had a ht years old and had been prepared under his supervision It ran for a hundred pages and described in grueso of toxic waste at the Bowmore plant It su, to dupe the Environency, and to buy off the politicians at the local, state, and federal level It recommended a clandestine but effective cleanup of the waste site, at a cost of soed anyone who read it to stop the du

And, most important at this critical moment, it predicted a bad verdict someday in a courtroom

Only luck and a flagrant disregard for the rules of civil procedure had allowed Ratzlaff to keep the memo a secret

Mr Trudeau had been given a copy of it eight years earlier, though he now denied he'd ever seen it Ratzlaff was tees, but, again, he treasured his job

Mr Trudeau walked to the table, placed both pallared at Bobby Ratzlaff, and said, "I swear to you, it will never happen Not one diet into the hands of those trailer park peasants"

The three lawyers stared at their boss, whose eyes were narrow and glowing He was breathing fire, and finished by saying, "If I have to bankrupt it or break it into fifteen pieces, I swear to you on rave that not one dinorant people"

And with that pro, lifted his jacket from a rack, and left the office